Shadow Hunters

Safety in Storms V: by Gaston Redcap

Curse

10

JAN/11

During our conversation together, this mad person has slowly told me her past in efforts to find out if she is evil or not. The bodies are buried and hidden everywhere around this old Inn and would surely damn her to evil at first glance. Is it merely circumstance that caused her to end up like this?

She begins explaining her curse, not allowing me to break the conversation, and therefore keeping me from getting closer to an exit. She speaks as if she was the half-elf Adasunu, whom I met briefly before, and I fear is now stuffed in the armoire at the back of the room. “You see, I met Tex when she walked up to the outpost, she had been travelling with her mother, Lal, away from the Underdark towards the Questless forest.” The drow blinks in memory, her pink tear appearing for a moment, but she acts manly and brushes it aside quickly, and I finally know the name of my captor. “Her mother had drowned in a river after losing her footing. Tex tried to kill herself to follow her mother, out of despair, but as she jumped to the waters, a wind pushed her back to the riverbed. Poor dear thinks this was the first time she died, but it was just an early appearance of her magical ability, gods be praised.”

“I took her in, and although I asked her not to show her magic, she would sprout an arc of lightning in some of the most awkward times.” Tex in her Adasunu mannerisms is slumping to the floor, sitting next to the black burn mark that empahsizes the story. “Her mother also told her to hide her talents, and…maybe she knew her daughter was magic. If I were to guess, Lal was taking Tex into the forest, where magic is not rejected outright, but frowned upon. Arcanists often stayed at the inn to plan their arguements.” the Tex side of her speaks “That was a boy being to brash, he had to die for what he said to me! His father died to pay the mistake in full as any drow will tell you!” I quickly have lost Adasunu. Even more so since the Innkeeper’s uniform burns off her shoulders, she stand bare in front of me, and whatever curse she has, well, it looks worth it. This beauty only adds to her prison of person, where no one seems to hear her: drow, arcane, doppelganger, orphan, unable to speak coherently and a female’s beauty all keep her from connecting with someone to help her. I know the forest and they do make arcanists feel unwanted, so she must have ended her journey at this Inn, only a few steps from her and her mother’s goal.

I ask her about the curse and she answers more focused. “Adasunu was lying down in bed, when I returned, sick. The elves in the forest could be heard waiting to ambush me, I left to find a cure for Adasunu, in fact the Hunters and I came across the cure all the time. But then I remembered the portal of fey magic. This portal caused pain to my gnome ally, but turned goblins into fey women and if I was an elf, the other elves would surely help Addy. At the time, my body was stripped of my changeling heritage, and I was stuck in male drow, form, but I had a decent chance the portal would turn me into something not drow. It didn’t work and I also could no longer speak well. Guess I’m closer to a goblin than a gnome. I returned to find Adasunu had gotten out of bed, but he really shouldn’t have in his condition, have you seen him?”